Regulating only one class of lobbyist gives the green light to others

Justin Di Lollo

You could be forgiven for missing it, but the state government quietly launched its latest regulations of lobbying last Thursday, with no media fanfare and a week after Parliament rose for the winter recess.

The new policy makes registered lobbyists ineligible for appointment to NSW government boards and committees if they have a client which has had an "interest" in that board's functions over the previous 12 months.

Despite its superficial attraction to a public wary of the influence of corporate and interest-group lobbying, this regulation will not achieve its apparent aim of reducing conflict of interest. As strange as it seems, the reason lies with the former Western Australian Labor government and its desire to stop the disgraced former premier Brian Burke working as a lobbyist.

While the intent of the ban is good and its implementation well overdue, its execution highlights the folly of the lobbyist regulation system. All new NSW regulation relies on the restrictive definition of "lobbyist" contained in the Rees government's original code of conduct for lobbyists. This definition specifically excludes lobbyists employed in-house with corporations, lobbyists whose primary practice is in the law, accounting or other "technical or professional'' fields and lobbyists who are employed by industry or member-based organisations.

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By regulating only one class of lobbyist, the government is indirectly giving the green light to other classes to continue totally unregulated.

The public will be pleased to know that "lobbyists" cannot be appointed to boards on which there is a direct conflict of interest. But I expect they would be horrified to hear this ban is restricted to one definition of lobbyist and that all other types are welcome.

The new regulation provides tacit approval for, hypothetically, a partner in an accounting firm who routinely lobbies the government on behalf of a paying client in favour of privatising a state-owned corporation to sit on the board of that very body.

One might reasonably ask how such a limited definition of lobbyist has become pervasive in the expanding regulations. There is a simple answer, which defies normal public policy practice: the NSW code of conduct, and all subsequent regulation relying on it, was based on the WA system.

Western Australia was the first jurisdiction to seriously define and regulate the lobbying industry, in 2007, when its government was under siege over Burke's appalling lobbying practices. Lobbyist regulation in WA had one simple political goal - to stop Burke having contact with ministers on behalf of his clients. The easiest way to do this was to define lobbyists as consultants who represent third parties and to disbar anyone from lobbying who had been convicted of a fraud-related crime.

The WA code of conduct was not designed to meet the broader, important policy goal of regulating the interaction between the government and external organisations. If it had been, it would have addressed lobbying by lawyers, accountants and professional associations; it would have ensured the regulation covered all parts of government, not just ministers, their offices and the bureaucracy; and, most importantly, it would have addressed activity by powerful corporations' inhouse lobbyists. The NSW government code is effectively a copy of WA's.

Barry O'Farrell made a lot of noise about the regulation of government lobbying during his last couple of years in opposition. Most of us in the lobbying industry support the concept wholeheartedly.

It's sad that O'Farrell has so quickly fallen into the trap of adding lip service memorandums to an ill-intentioned piece of thrice-copied quasi-regulation dreamt up by a political adviser in the WA premier's office five years ago.

If the public's desire for effective regulation of lobbying is to be realised, the current approach needs to be jettisoned and replaced with a regime built around the desired outcome. This is basic public policy practice and it's a crying shame it has been ignored.

Justin Di Lollo is the managing director of Hawker Britton, a government relations and lobbying firm registered in every lobbyist regulation scheme in Australia.

4 comments

It may not be accurate here but I've developed a simple rule for deciding if I should agree with something or not

If anyone from Hawker Britton is against something then I'm all for it - if they are for something, I'm against it

If the state ALP had followed this rule, they may have kept their vote above 30%

Commenter

Paully

Location

Newcastle

Date and time

July 12, 2011, 8:51AM

Removing the influence of Hawker Britton from Government is an excellent outcome.

Commenter

cwitty

Location

sydney

Date and time

July 12, 2011, 9:59AM

The widespread use of Lobbyists, large private & corporate donations to political parties has implicitly turned Australia into a plutocracy (ie rule by the rich). The abillity of citizens to initiate referenda would be one way of bypassing the undemocratic axis that develops between politicians, lobbyists, developers and corporate and even ethnic interests.

I'm sure some politicians would feel relieved to be able to balance of with their constituants rather than monied lobbyists and special interest groups.

Commenter

William

Location

Sydney

Date and time

July 12, 2011, 10:39AM

Why has the ALP become the plaything of lobbyists? In the 1980s, it re-wrote its rules to prevent the membership over-ruling the Parliamentary Party. They did this because the policy agenda of the Hawke Government was diametrically opposed to that of the membership. The members, of course, left. In droves. The party is now a shell of its former self and, without roots in the working class, has an agenda determined by the leadership on he basis of whatever those leaders see fit to promote. For good reasons or bad.